An indepth examination of the controversy surrounding nuclear power

Tag Archives: fallout

I want to take this post to show and discuss a video I found while doing research for this blog.

This video is probably the best example I have seen of a video that really shows the largely undiscussed issue of above ground testing. It also goes a long way to explain the issues that many people have with nuclear power, and it also shows the responsibility that people have to ensure that their government abides by rules that the rest of the world will be comfortable with.

In the US alone, ‘Operation Plumbbob’, which only ran from May to October 1957, resulted in 29 above ground nuclear detonations in the Nevada desert, and is predicted to have increased the rate of thyroid cancer in the US by 1-20 thousand cases per year since (1).

All of the detonations you see in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are from the so called ‘Pacific Proving Ground’, an area of around 360,000 km² in which the US set off 105 atmospheric detonations, including many that dropped fallout on inhabited islands (5).

The largest human made explosion ever set off, the Tsar Bomba (Царь-бомба), was a nuclear bomb detonated by the USSR in far norther Russia. It was an above ground detonation and the blast wave is thought to have circled the world more than three times, and broke windows as far away as Norway (6). (It was the large detonation at about 3 minutes 30 into the video.)

Between 1954–1992, 520 atmospheric test detonations have been conducted by states around the world. It was only with the introduction of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, that the US and the USSR (the two biggest contributors) stopped detonating above ground (4). (Of course many countries kept testing after this, and the US and USSR kept testing underground.)

The US EPA has a great page detailing the levels of contamination around the world, as well as the effects of the contamination on human populations, here.

When talking about issues that involve nuclear physics, it is important to remember this type of information. Even if you are trying to win your arguement based solely on a factual basis, it is imperative that you take in to consideration the vast amounts of pain and suffering many different groups of people aroudn the world have been through, before you attempt to dismiss the worries of safety. If people don’t feel safe, then it is probably because you have not explain it well enough. Of course there will always be people who are opposed, but you still cannot disregard their (legitimate) feelings on the subject.

Many countries have paid out monetary compensation to those people who have suffered because of this kind of testing, but money (while helpful) probably does little to assuage their trauma.